The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint (Paperback)

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Staff Reviews

One of the best endings
I’ve ever read! (and you know how that can make or break a book)
Edgar evoked a lot of emotion. First, I ached for Edgar and his
injury. Later, my heart broke for him and all of the loss and injustice
in his life. I kept yelling in my head, “It’s Just Not Fair!” By then
end, I was cheering for Edgar, and everything in his situation that I
hoped he could rise above.
This is a truly exceptional read.

— Jessilynn

Description

If I could tell you only one thing about my life it would be this: when I was seven years old the mailman ran over my head. As formative events go, nothing else comes close.

With these words Edgar Mint, half-Apache and mostly orphaned, makes his unshakable claim on our attention. In the course of Brady Udall’s high-spirited, inexhaustibly inventive novel, Edgar survives not just this bizarre accident, but a hellish boarding school for Native American orphans, a well-meaning but wildly dysfunctional Mormon foster-family, and the loss of most of the illusions that are supposed to make life bearable.

What persists is Edgar’s innate goodness, his belief in the redeeming power of language, and his determination to find and forgive the man who almost killed him. The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint is a miracle of storytelling, bursting with heartache and hilarity and inhabited by characters as outsized as the landscape of the American West.

About the Author

Brady Udall is the author of the much-acclaimed story collection "Letting Loose the Hounds," and was a finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award. Born and raised in the Indian counry of northeastern Arizona, Udall now teaches fiction writing at Southern Illinois University. He lives in Carbondale with his wife and family.